Should Massachusetts allow guns to be equipped with suppressors, or silencers? the headline at bostonglobe.com asks. I guess the comma after suppressors is supposed to indicate that the question isn’t an either/or proposition. ‘Cause a suppressor is a silencer. If you want more of that stupidity, only more so . . .

Check out the “no” side of the question in this feature, helpfully called “the argument.” It’s written by Walpole Police Chief John Carmichael (above), who’s either completely ill-informed on the subject of suppressors (and silencers!) or a practitioner of what pundits call “fake news.”

The purpose of a suppressor, or silencer, is to reduce the noise emitted from the weapon when fired and to minimize muzzle flash. This accessory certainly has some legitimate benefit for law enforcement and military operations but serves no real purpose for civilian use.

Huh? How exactly do cans benefit the police and military, but not civilians (a category which, BTW, also includes the police)?

The suggested advantage of suppressors comes in the form of improved hearing protection afforded users at a range or while hunting, and perhaps the solace it might offer residents who abut an outdoor firearms range. Suppressors may also assist in reducing the recoil upon firing the weapon and improve accuracy.

I get it! Chief Carmichael believes that extra hearing protection, reduced recoil and improved accuracy serve no purpose for “civilians” because . . . because . . . because . . . because of the wonderful things he does!

While suppressors do not mask the sound emitted from a firearm as much as we frequently see in Hollywood movies, they may muffle it enough that someone nearby would be unaware of a shot fired. Some Massachusetts communities even use technology such as ShotSpotter to alert law enforcement of possible shots fired in order to respond quickly and deploy necessary assets.

Since suppressors also reduce muzzle flash, especially in low light conditions, and reduce recoil and muzzle position, they pose an additional threat to law enforcement during critical incidents involving shooters, as it hinders their ability to pinpoint the perpetrator’s location.

We’ve said it before: ShotSpotter has publicly declared that their system isn’t foiled by suppressors. As for suppressors flummoxing law enforcement, where’s the evidence?

*crickets chirping*

Since Massachusetts allows only limited use of rifles for hunting, and shotguns cannot be equipped with suppressors, the hunting argument is irrelevant.

Uh, Chief? SilencerCo makes the Salvo shotgun silencer. A fact you would have discovered if you’d spent 15 seconds Googling the obscure phrase “shotgun silencer.” Willful ignorance or #fakenews? We report, you deride.

Here’s a clue to the Chief’s mastery of his anti-suppressor argument: he ends his defense of suppressor regulations with a big fat qualifier.

. . . legalizing gun suppressors could diminish public safety protection for citizens and law enforcement when critical incidents involving firearms occur.

Or legalizing gun suppressors could increase public safety by protecting their hearing and increasing their accuracy when practicing, hunting and/or during a defensive gun use.

RELATED ARTICLESMORE FROM AUTHOR

79 COMMENTS

    • I’m beginning to think that the stars on police chief’s collars represent their IQ, or maybe the number of asses they kissed to get that job.

      • Yes. When was a eagle no longer good enough? Now need 4 or more stars and scrambled eggs on the hat? Thinks a real 3 star/LTG is going to salute him?

    • Let’s face it, there’s only 2 ways to become Chief. It’s a very small town, there were only 3 cops on the force and you were there the longest. The other, you’re a browning nosing, egotistical jerk from out of town who got hired into the job because he knew he’d never make Chief in the town where he had been working because everyone there hated his guts.

      • Walpole doesn’t bring much to the table beyond the Red Wing Diner. Police unions donate mucho dinero to their preferred legislators which is why this bill is going nowhere in MA.

  3. More politically appointed Northeast police misinformation who’s supposed to be viewed by people as an authority figure who knows what he’s talking about. He’s spouting the same crap that most East Coast police chiefs have been on suppressors, permitless carry, national reciprocity, etc.

    I hope everyone reads this and understands that this is BS from a cop who wants to keep his power to use force against you and allow those around him to be helpless to that authority.

  4. Another liberal asshole full of himself with absolutely no viable credibility or intelligence. Those kinds are a dime a dozen. And worse, they are the ones that seek even more power and control over citizens to maintain their idea of a “police state” for all liberals and dumbassocrats in office. It is really hard at times to voice continued support for the “boys in blue” when assholes like this are out there to take away gun rights of law abiding citizens by abusing their power with over inflated egos on a power trip!

    • As a Massachusetts resident I aggree wholeheartedly !!! “Welcome to Massachusetts: The DNC/RINO: Authoritarian Utopian Police state !”
      My guess is not to many citizens in his city receive FIDs/LTCs ….How would you like to have a ” citizen FID/LTC application appointment Q&A with this guy about exercising your 2nd amendment rights…?”

      • That would be a lose/lose situation because there would never be a correct or acceptable answer for him to approve the request. It sucks to live in MA and New Dorkistan because of such jackasses! Sooner or later I will have to apply in Dorkistan knowing that once I’ve registered my guns could be confiscated for no reason like they did in Louisiana after that hurricane. Worse, criminal hackers can access data bases to target owners for specific guns for their clients. Or like one guy in Jersey found out, you could be harassed and threatened with arrest for not only having a permit to carry, but leaving it at home. He was stopped for a tail light and his permit in GA was available on the system. So the cops harassed the hell out of him demanding to know where his gun was. And because it was back in GA, he couldn’t comply and they damn near arrested him for it!

  6. I’m confused, didn’t he just go through all the reasons why they ARE useful?

    Also, what circumstance would make them useful to police but not civilians? The police aren’t supposed to be quietly killing sentries without warning last time I checked.

  8. “This accessory certainly has some legitimate benefit for law enforcement and military operations but serves no real purpose for civilian use.”

    This sentence provides a pretty interesting window into the way this guy thinks.

    Cops aren’t civilians. I guess they must fall under the UCMJ then? (Oh, I bet he’d love that to be the case ROFL!)

    Cops have a use but civilians don’t. I guess some animals are just “more equal” than others. Also, this brings up a question: Specifically what LEO operations would get a legitimate benefit from using silencers? The ones where they shoot all the fucking dogs but, with silencers, don’t wake the neighbors? You know, the ones where they boot down a door at 4am, find nothing, but get away with it because of qualified immunity and the magic word “drugs”? Ah, who am I kidding, the silencers are pointless for the cops. The flashbang in the baby’s crib will wake up the whole neighborhood!

    I try not to flame anyone here but when I see a police chief say something like this all I can say is “Fuck that guy and the horse he rode in on. Well, actually leave the poor horse alone and do something awful to the guy.”.

    People like this guy make it hard to take cops, and more generally the government, seriously at all. A bunch of incompetent boobs making rules for the rest of us and enforcing them at gunpoint while they break the same laws and probably don’t even realize they’re doing it. I’ll take this shit seriously when every LEO in the nation arrests themselves for possession, use and manufacture of a Schedule 1 narcotic and being in possession of a firearm while in possession of drugs as well as lying on their background check(s). Hey, “The law is the law” and they’re just there to enforce it, right?

    • I ordered a .22 can in April 2016, ahead of 41F. It made it to my dealer a month or so later. The tax stamp, however, did not arrive until June 2017. And I was using a trust that already had two suppressors purchased under it.

    • Takes a while, costs some money, try it once for something that matters to you. I ordered a .300 blk SBR and a can for it, took 4 months, have since used the can on 5.56 and .308 rifles, I consider it a good investment of my time and money. YMMV.

  10. Well hell, I’ll just bend over and kiss my ass. A Political overlord has spoken, we must eat every word with out question and obey, because he knows whats best for the unwashed piss ant, serfs that he rules over. NOW toddle off little ones I have (cough cough) your back.

  11. Why do these guys all have enough gold on their hats, collars and sleeves to look like some two bit third world field marshal or dictator? To answer my own question – maybe because they think that they are.

    • Hey, lighten up.
      This dude is a Four Star, which puts him in the same league as MacArthur, Marshall, Patton, Eisenhower, Bradley ….et al. Pretty impressive for a berg of 24,000 civilians.

    • “Mao, Stalin, Kim…what does every tyrant do first thing upon seizing power? Confiscate the peoples’ fire–”
      “You mean put on the silly military uniform?”

      I’m sure one of those is his jack-boot-polishing merit badge, right next his mayor-boot-licking merit badge

  12. If criminals were going to use a silencer/suppressor, they would be using them already. It is quite easy to make an illegal suppressor. If they were being used in crimes the media would be all over that story.

    • Yeah, it’s not like gangbangers are slapping suppressors on every handgun they own and using them for all the shootings they do. The suppressors are too long to conceal for that.

      Now if we’re talking about criminals using these in a planned murder, then it’s possibly that the noise reduction will make it so other people can’t hear that a shooting happened, but it’s not like having a suppressed gun makes murder easier, it doesn’t change the fact that someone with a gun is trying to kill somebody else. This cop and the propaganda media will have us believe that a normal gun is already bad in the hands of an American, but a suppressed gun is the tool that puts a person over the edge into a wannabe killer.

      Let’s look at Europe, the liberals love Europe, and see that suppressors for firearms there are much less heavily regulated than in the US.

      • Lest we forget, the whole justification for the beloved ShotSpotter boondoggle is the gangbanger areas are rife with near-constant reports of gunfire that go unreported and investigated, and the system is supposed to make that job easier. I don’t think gangbangers *need* to use silencers to keep people from reporting their activities (in fact, the gunfire probably serves to shut peoples’ mouths when the coppers do come calling)

        • I’ve said it before:
          Shotspotter has a fatal flaw: police response time.
          They can’t respond any faster to a shotspotter report than they can to a “shots fired” phone call.
          The reason Shotspotter is used is because the people won’t bother to call gunshots in because they know, from experience, that nothing will happen when they do. When a perp is caught from an investigation started by a Shotspotter report, it makes the news, because such results are so rare.
          And, as said in the article, silencers don’t affect Shotspotter.
          And don’t forget, police chiefs tend to echo their employers’ thoughts.

  13. We don’t?? Just what Id expect from an appointed LEO and the Chief in a Blue State city no less. Then again whats a cop know who probably hasn’t qualified since he made Lt. know from a possible hearing loss??

  14. Civilians have no use for sound suppressor? Well, I suppose it’s a good thing I am a citizen then.

    He’s the sort of douche who probably thinks fondly of the days when he could take a hose to a suspect to get a confession.

  15. All hail the self appointed expert who knows all and sends down pronouncements from the top of Mount Olympus! Either that, or he is just another leftist jackass who will continue to try to destroy the Bill of Rights, as long as there is a paycheck in it.

  16. If it is not legal for citizens then they are not legal for OUR public servants . These knuckles heads need to be reminded they work for use. We do not bow to them . With out the consent of the people they have no job or authority.

  17. Dear Chief Carmichael:
    You’re a civilian. Don’t forget it, pig.

    Dear police officers who haven’t forgotten you are civilians: You’re cool, but I don’t wan’t to hang out with you at work, okay?

  18. Walpole Ma. A tiny town with a population of under 6000 residents. Why would his opininion on a national issue be newsworthy? Because it fit the author’s agenda. no more no less

  21. Citizens have no use for overbearing overdressed pigs either, but there you are anyway. Masshole.

  23. Don’t be shocked that the leftist doesn’t have common sense. He can’t help it that he’s a useless idiot that the rest of the nation laughs at. Probably gets the same reaction when his wife/husband/whatever sees him naked.

  24. So there is an industry with millions in sales to civilians, but no one has thought of a use for the product… Cool story, bro.

  25. What? What did Little Johnny say? That boy needs to stop mumbling and speak up! I can not hear a damn thing he is saying. There has been some sort of cultural shift and now everyone is muttering under their breath. Hell, I have to make damn near everyone repeat everything when they talk to me.

  26. What is funny to me is a lot of libs will eat this shit up and then forget that this is one of the people that they are concerned about when it come to militarized police forces.

  27. As soon as any LEO starts using the word “civilian” to refer to citizens who are not in law enforcement, we know the rest of their mindset. It’s a huge tell, and not a good one.

    • Very nice, DP. It’s a pain in the ass to respond just to compliment, but I couldn’t resist.

    • Sadly, it’s more accurate than not, anymore. The differentiation between soldiers & civilians was because military operations necessarily carry with them a certain amount of immunity and special privilege. I defy anyone to tell me our supposed “peace officers” don’t enjoy similar status today, as far as practically every law involving firearms (not even getting into all the other areas the law carries water for the thin blue line)

  28. This is why i moved from Mass, this kind of thinking,, Iam here in FLorida for 9 ears now, have 3 ARs one is 9mm 2 supps one is set up for my glock the other is for my 223, god i miss mass but so glad iam here

    • Yeah, Mass is a great place to live…except for all the additional laws and taxes. I remember when I was a kid in the 70s, it wasn’t quite so bad. By the time I turned 18 I had to move out of state to free America so I could buy firearms without begging some asshole chief (just like this moron) for a permission slip to do so and not get taxed to death on things I already own.
      Its hard to believe that it was the birthplace of the revolution…every time I drive through Lexington and Concord “illegally” carrying a pistol I cant help but feel the irony….pathetic.

      • “2 milion thumbs up! From a fellow peasent masshole civilian ! Lol! This is the mentality of police departments all over Massachusetts…Paramilitarizied Barracks of imperial officers fit to run Darth Vader Star Destroyer !!! :-)”

  30. This guy doesn’t understand the concept of freedom. For me to possess something, anything, does not (or at least shouldn’t) require me to demonstrate a need. For the government to prohibit something, however, should require them to demonstrate a significant harm. So, maybe he’s right and I don’t need a suppressor – so what. You show me a meaningful reason why I should be prohibited from owning one. Quick tip, it makes cop’s job harder is not a meaningful reason and is probably not true.

  31. Now you see why I love living in Massachusetts — I always feel like I’m the smartest guy in this whole freaking state-full-of-dummies.

    With the exception of my fellow MA POTG, of course.

    • Per the chief himself:
      “Suppressors may also assist in reducing the recoil upon firing the weapon and improve accuracy.”
      Maybe it’s the increased accuracy they’re after. Might help with the stray bullets.

  33. Virtue Signaling for Maura Healy I’ll bet. Hoping he can be a bigger fish than his little berg.

    • It’s because most of them perceive themselves as such! As the CT State Police Chief said back a few years ago when reminded they work for us, “NO, YOU work FOR US!”

  35. “All animals are equal. Some animals are more equal than others.” The fact that his DB separates police from “civilians” shows his true colors. He believes police are above us normal animals, I mean people. This is the heart of the problem that makes today’s liberals dangerous.

    • Cool! Use that argument the next time you get stopped for a traffic violation! Refuse to stop in the first place! Refuse to identify yourself! Mouth off at the officer! If he gives you a citation, tear it up right in front of him and throw the pieces on the ground! Resist arrest by all possible means! Scream, bite, gouge, punch, pull a gun!
      Lemme know how that works out for you, Skippy. If you survive, when you get out of the hospital and prison, we can discuss the relative ‘authority’ levels of garbagemen vs. police officers then.

  37. So, law enforcement(*) advocating policy that benefits the enforcers, vs. the enforced upon. Well, at least they’re a consistent interest group, if dishonest about being one.

    (*) Officials, management, bureaucrats; you know, the rent-extracting cohort. The people who do the actual work, or elected officials think differently.

  38. Boston needs to be cleansed of Tories once again; the yankees must’ve left the door open by accident, and they snuck back in. Seriously; what do you suppose this tool thinks “real purposes” for civilians are, anyway? Sounds like another ‘duck hunting’ anti-gun moron, so dutiful in his protection of and concern for such an inconsequential activity.

    What are the chances this Chief or his subordinates have cited drivers for loud, leaking exhaust manifolds or straight pipes?

  39. “…This accessory certainly has some legitimate benefit for law enforcement and military operations but serves no real purpose for civilian use.”

    OK, I’ll risk getting a Flame Deleted flag….

    What an arrogant ass to think that he gets to decide what civilians get or don’t get. And he is doubly an ass for admitting outright that he considers himself and the Brothers in Blue to be above the law, better than the ‘civilians.’ I’ve got news for you, you aren’t my dad so you don’t get to tell me what I get to have and you are a civilian yourself so this ‘civilian use’ is you. If it’s good enough for you it’s good enough for everyone else you arrogant….. insert very-rude-dirty-word here

  40. Only a fascist asshole from Massachusetts law enforcement can say that. If sound suppressors are not justifiable for civilians, then neither should they be for police. The police has no use for them if they are to apply the law in the “sunshine”. This is just a case of blaming law abiding civilians for crime not yet committed. How many murders occur every year using silencers? How many with “assault weapons”? The statistics would not justify outlawing either of them. In Massachusetts everything seems to be illegal (save maybe breathing) and that has not curbed the crime rate in that state nor improve the quality of life for the average tax payer (the rich is another matter).

  41. Well it’s a good thing we aren’t allowed to have anything that isn’t explicitly useful! I’m so glad that those who are better than us are looking out for us so diligently!

    Seriously is this the best he’s got?

  45. Chief Carmichael , is just stating what his liberal boss wants to hear and his remarks are completely
    foolish . He is putting the cart before the horse , If he thinks that allowing tax paying citizens to have
    a suppressor is the problem , maybe he needs to check his Cities crime stats ??

    Criminals are criminals , you just cannot change that unless the ” Chief ” locks them up .
    Tax paying citizens well follow the laws…………………. including owning a suppressor !!

  46. They serve the puposes they do, and they are safer to use than cops.

    You might be able to beat someone with a suppressor, but, when used properly, they are no more dangerous than the firearm they are installed on.

    Tyrant Cops are more prevalent and more dangerous. Gotta devote to eradicating the possibility for tyrant cops.

    Funny too Sweden’s got a grenade problem. If the US DEVELOPS A SIMILAR ONE, FU TO THOSE ATTEMPTING TO PREEMPT RESPONSES TO INDIRECT FIRE.

  47. “No ad hominem attacks” unless you’re a police officer or are from Massachusetts, two subjects that RF is sour on. Then it’s ok.

  48. Since “civilians” are government employees not in the military, he is correct. Citizens have multiple uses for them.

  49. “Massachusetts allows only limited use of rifles for hunting,” so rifles are allowed, so “the hunting argument is irrelevant” except when it isn’t. (And also all the other times as the article points out.

    I hope this guy goes on Tucker Carlson. He is the exact kind of guy I like to debate.

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